My grandfather, on my dad’s side, Louis Stanley Rasic. He essentially laid the building blocks for my dad and his sister.

He retired from the LAPD and the military. My grandfather brought in many criminals. He was an honest and honorable man, a rarity there. While walking the beat in downtown L.A., he was in an altercation that forced him to retire. I remember the war (WWII) and police stories he told me, while I was staying at his place in California. They were my bedtime stories.

My favorite memory of my grandfather is of us sitting out on his front porch playing poker on a hot summer day, and then visiting the local pool nearby when it got too hot.

What are you studying (and why)?

I ‘m studying mechanical engineering, with a minor in math, at the University of Alaska Anchorage. I was a pipefitter, and I grew tired of using brawn over brain.

I have one more year left in this program. And I can’t wait to graduate to provide for my family (my wife, son and daughter).

What are your job responsibilities this summer? What do you hope to learn/accomplish?

This summer, I am working under a professional engineer in the mechanical piping and design group at NANA WorleyParsons, one of NANA’s subsidiaries (owned jointly with WorleyParsons, out of Australia).

This internship is a little different from the last. I’ve been given a little bit more work, and a little more free rein on projects—alleviating the mechanical pipe and design group of certain tasks and making them more efficient. I mostly work on Excel spreadsheets for data analysis and “material take offs” (MTOs) so they can populate their respective requisition forms easily. I’ve also been assigned tasks from the project manager to forecast some trends and compile lists of assumptions for each discipline. (These are more real-life, engineering tasks.)

What do our Iñupiaq values mean to you; and how do you feel we incorporate them within NANA?

Iñupiaq values are important, and rightly so. Although they weren’t spelled out, the values were intrinsically known. Our values are not only important because our ancestors survived by them, but because our future generations rely on them.

Here at NANA WorleyParsons, there are two companies with two business mindsets that are melded together and headed in the same direction.

Of our values, which means the most to you and why? How do you practice them or see them in practice?

My personal values that I like to live by are humility and humor; they go hand in hand. I think everyone has been made fun of at a certain point in their life, most likely in grade school. That experience might have been humiliating, but, looking back on it, it may now seem humorous.

These are important aspects of day-to-day life that may go overlooked. When you get to really know the people that you work with, in my case here at NANA WorleyParsons, you realize who gets along with who. I’d like to clarify, as an intern I do not exercise humor all that often! You learn what’s allowable (appropriate) in certain situations. Part of being an intern is learning the ropes.